


you made me magic

by outwardbound93



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Magical Realism, Shapeshifting, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-20 12:38:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8249411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outwardbound93/pseuds/outwardbound93
Summary: The one where Liam's a witch who fixes things and Harry's the cat familiar that falls in love with him.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dramaturgicallycorrect](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramaturgicallycorrect/gifts), [veryniceandgood (tsburnerburnerburner)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=veryniceandgood+%28tsburnerburnerburner%29).



> thank u very much to fina and kate for the prompts! i love y'all :')

Honey-warm sunshine pours through the narrow window just below the eaves of the house. Streaking through the three dusty panes of glass, it oozes across the work shop floor like the yellow lines on highways. To Harry they say, _slow, slow, slow._ He arches his back and flexes his paws, unsheathing his claws for a luxurious moment before he curls back into the warmth of his own fur.

He’s dozing lightly again – having a cat nap, if you will, haha – when the front door bangs open, a cold wind rustles through the house, and his ears prick up to the sound of Liam’s voice. He’s warbling something, some snatch of a song from this century that Harry can’t be bothered with.

Harry stretches his forepaws out in front of him, arching his back like the best yoga instructors only wish they could do, and trots down the hall to the entryway, where Liam’s struggling to get his scarf from around his neck. Harry, answering to his duty as household pet, weaves himself in a figure eight around Liam’s ankles. He picks up the traces of burnished leaves, a rainbow-skinned oily puddle, cool cement, and the damp cold of someone’s basement, and replaces it with his own scent.

“Are you trying to kill me?” Liam asks. He peers down at Harry between his boots. Even though his face is upside-down from this angle, Harry knows he’s less happy and more frustrated than he’d like to seem. The crackling static electricity of magic is still caught in the folds of his heavy canvas work pants; maybe something went wrong on one of his repairs? Maybe he saw a little old lady crossing the street and didn’t offer to hold her arm, or maybe he’s sad to come home to a quiet house and a cat familiar that keeps scratching holes in all his ugliest t-shirts so he can’t wear them. It’s hard to tell with Liam.

Harry _meows_ , a curious, discontent little sound, and Liam reaches down between his ankles and scoops Harry up. Harry lets himself be cuddled against Liam’s solid chest for a moment, and then he meows again, a drawn-out sound this time. So Liam deposits him back on the wooden floor with a maddening one-finger tap to the tip of Harry’s nose.

Harry flicks his tail and waits approximately three seconds before he trots behind Liam into the kitchen, where Liam busily lights the hob and puts the kettle on. He also puts a cast-iron pot over a burner, so Harry bounces from the sack of potatoes leaning against the fridge to a vacant chair at the kitchen table and then onto the counter for a better look. He threads his way between several broken toasters, a Keurig with all its body parts strewn out over the countertop, and a vast collection of little metal and copper bits and bobs till he’s perched just to the right of the range.

Liam turns from the pantry with sprigs of holly and lavender and chamomile – restful herbs, peaceful things – clenched in his fists. “Cat on the counter – this can’t be sanitary,” he tells Harry, who gives him a reproachful look and starts licking his paws clean anyway. He watches out of the corner of his eye as Liam adds a pinch of ground cassia and allspice.

Liam’s not exactly known for his draughts, and it’s definitely not Harry’s particular brand of magic, but even he loves when Liam has guests over and brews them a kettle of one of his own recipes.

They smell better than they taste, though the taste is impossible to describe; all those herbs cooking down together smell like the fields where they’d grown and the future they have ahead. The odor hangs in the air like ozone promising a thunderstorm, though Liam’s brews more often remedy a cold or take the edge off a bad day. People bring their toaster or kid’s smashed Nintendo or favorite house lamp in for repairs, and come away feeling like they’ve been repaired a little, too. Proudly, Harry thinks, he’s the town’s favorite handyman for good reason.

A light sheen of sweat mists Liam’s face. He shrugs off his heavy jumper and pushes up the sleeves of his long sleeve t-shirt, the tune he hums under his breath not quite so happy anymore, more even now. He braces himself with a hand on the counter, so Harry pushes the top of his head against Liam’s bare arm and sends along a gentle stream of magic. Or maybe he just opens up Liam’s throttle a little; he’s not really sure. Either way, he wants to help.

“You are a sweet cat,” Liam acknowledges, like Harry doesn’t know this. He finishes the hard work of flipping the hob off, straining the tea mixture, and bottling it with the faintest kiss of magic, and Harry lounges on the floor. And Liam finally starts talking. “I was in town looking for the proper bolt for Mrs. McLarin’s washer, and I met our new neighbor, and we started chatting. He’s brill, and he said he’d heard of me – me! Can you believe that? – and I said I hoped it was all good things, and he said it was so good it can’t be true.” Liam bites his lip. “I’ve invited him round for tea.”

Harry bristles without meaning to. His claws scrape without finding purchase on Liam’s smooth countertops, and his tail stops its casual ticking. “Just gets a bit lonely around here, don’t you think?” Liam asks, softly. “With just you and me, I mean. And since I’m out so much.”

Sure, Harry thinks, but he spends tons of time at home, as well, and Harry helps him with the small repairs, and when he naps on the couch Harry gets to curl up on his chest and purr as loudly as he wants, and he always thanks Harry for the dead birds he brings him even if he doesn’t eat them. Harry’s not lonely, but apparently Liam is.

It puts Harry in a dead foul mood. Liam eats a piece of toast over the sink and Harry glowers at him from his spot on the kitchen table – a sacred place, Harry would never normally dare to sit up here, and Liam’s actually ignoring him do it – and then he jumps into the shower. Harry would try and trip him in there except he hates getting wet. Instead he waits under the bed for Liam to come out of the loo to swipe at his ankles.

Liam’s lonely. Harry’s not sure why that prickles at him so much, but it does. It doesn’t make sense. Harry’s been prowling around, boosting witches’ power and watching the years slip dreamily by, for centuries. There have been dozens of witches before Liam and dozens to come after. Still. He’s lonely, and Harry’s his familiar, and Liam is Harry’s witch, and he’d like to keep it that way, thanks. Only maybe that’s not enough for Liam.

Harry retreats further under the bed and watches Liam’s feet press into the carpet and one shirt after another hit the floor as he tries on what must be his entire wardrobe, and he wonders.

Curiosity has Harry creeping along after Liam when the doorbell goes. He tucks himself into an alcove and does not think about curiosity killing cats or cat familiars, and Liam opens the door, and a bloke steps through. Harry hates him immediately.

For one, his hair is all stood up and swooshed off to the side. How impractical is that? For another, he’s wearing approximately fifteen layers of clothing, which just tells Harry that he doesn’t care about the environment. His washing bills must be enormous. For another, he’s wearing leather shoes, and he doesn’t go to take them off at the door until Liam prompts him. Harry’s a whizz at a good cleaning spell but does he want to use his precious and eerie supernatural powers to lift the stain out of a carpet? He’s not Mr. Clean or whoever the scary bald guy in the commercials is. No.

Liam takes his coat like the gentleman he is and they walk on carpeted feet to the kitchen, where Liam warms the tea Harry helped him brew earlier and some scones the baker gave him for free. Harry contemplates throwing up a hair ball in the bloke’s shoes but it’s kind of awful, to be honest, so instead he just rakes his claws over the supple leather a couple of times. Satisfied, Harry slips into the kitchen to see if Liam’s realized his grievous mistake yet and needs Harry’s help to turn the bloke into a chair or a lizard. Harry’s worked with other witches who were capable of that kind of magic, but they’re not his favorites. They’re high maintenance, for one, and always going on about “I’ll turn you into a lizard if you don’t stop trying to burn me at the stake,” for another. It does get old after a while.

It’s even worse than Harry imagined. Liam’s pink-faced and _laughing,_ and the song he hums while their sandwiches toast in the oven is bubbly and sweet. Harry tries to sit in his lap, but Liam keeps pushing him off, till eventually Harry digs his claws in.

“Ow!” Liam says, the first thing he’s said to Harry all evening.

“Cats,” the bloke shakes his head. Harry gives him his absolute best death glare from Liam’s arms, and then Liam tosses him into his bedroom and shuts the door. Harry hisses at the door to no avail, lets out a warbling little cry, and then curls up on top of the bed with his snout buried in the familiar scent of Liam’s blankets.

Liam pulls the blankets back what feels like hours later. Harry blinks and stretches. He meant to have a quick kip and then maybe plot something, but instead he passed out cold. Liam smiles at him, sweet and fond, and Harry forgets all about being mad at him. “Sorry, kitty,” Liam says, real penitence in his voice. He hooks his hands under Harry’s arms and scoops him up, and then he presses kisses all over Harry’s face. Harry flicks his tail and thinks, smugly, _There._ Liam’s date definitely didn’t get this kind of treatment.

Even though he spends the rest of the evening curled up against Liam on the couch, Harry thinks about it, though. How Liam’s lonely, and how nice it feels to have his attention, his soft touch and his kiss. Liam tries to make the world a better place; it’s Harry’s job to help, even – especially – when that means sharing Liam himself.

 

***

 

The solution comes to Harry while he’s in the middle of giving himself a bath in the neighbor’s back yard. He’s sitting in the dry bird feeder, his paw up to his bristly tongue, when he realizes that he could make Liam less lonely. Liam sells himself short with funny blokes with bad hair, so he needs Harry to find him someone good enough for him. Perfect. Harry can do that.

Hm. He goes back to licking his paw more slowly now, lost in thought. That’d be hard to do as an animal. He could maybe work really hard to stage something, but he won’t be able to get to know any of Liam’s potential suitors if he can’t talk to them. Liam wants human companionship – weird, but fine – and Harry has a human form. If he can just…remember how to shift into it.

Magic’s sort of like instinct, or the way you remember a book you read when you were a kid. You don’t think of it often, but then something jogs your memory, a smell or a phrase or the way the wind curls around the side of the house before pressing in, and suddenly it all comes back to you.

Harry can’t goddamn remember how not to be a cat. He curls and uncurls his tail in annoyance while at the table, Liam putters about with Mr. Rowan’s broken microwave. Magic, Harry remembers thinking, doesn’t well go with the mechanics of fixing things. He’d followed Liam home from the pub where he was living – if you can catch a mouse, you can always find a pub willing to keep you – because he could smell the magic on him. His house had looked much the same, if even more packed with broken sound systems, broken appliances, and an infinite array of tools. It was a bit of a mess, really. But Liam noticed him prowling around and only gently set him back outside with a saucer of milk, so Harry decided to adopt him.

These days, he’s not quite sure how Liam channels the magic Harry directs to him. Things break, Liam and Harry fix them, it’s that simple. Harry lived in a time when stuff like this would’ve been considered magic anyway, so it doesn’t bother him very much. Newton and that lot used to think that the universe was clockwork-perfect and maintained by magic; Harry can see that.

“You look thoughtful,” Liam remarks. Harry flicks his tail, his ears flattened against his head. “I don’t suppose cats can really see ghosts?” Harry just keeps flicking his tail. Liam starts singing, “Pretty kitty, walking down the street, pretty kitty, the kind I like to meet,” which isn’t all that out of the ordinary. It does make Harry move around so his belly’s pressed to the floor, though. “Pretty kitty, I don’t believe you, you’re not the truth…”

A few days later, the light-washed rays of a full moon pour through the slatted blinds of Liam’s bedroom. Liam’s fast asleep with his face buried into the pillow, his arm curled over the top of the pillow. Harry’s wide awake, examining them in the mirror above his bureau. He’s had a human form before, he knows he has. He was human once. He just can’t remember…

But he can imagine. He’d have to balance on two legs, not four, and no tail, either. He could do other things, though. Like Liam talks about. Go to the movies, or sit down at a café for breakfast, or feel the wind brush his bare skin. He could touch Liam with more than the pads of his paws, with actual, sensitive, fingertips…

Harry falls asleep thinking about it. He wakes up when the person next to him on the bed gives a shrill little shriek, and makes a thump when he hits the floor.

 

***

 

“Let me get this straight,” says Liam. He cradles a steaming mug of tea between his palms, though he’s yet to drink any of it yet. He really should. It’s a bit drafty in here with the back door wide open like Liam might go screaming through it at a run. “You’re my familiar, my cat, only you’re not. Now. You’re a person.”

Harry tilts his head and almost falls out of his chair at the kitchen table. He wrapped up in the blanket from Liam’s bed and nothing else, and he misses his fur almost pathetically. He feels raw and exposed, and a bit like a newborn. As patiently as he can, he says, “Yes.” Oh, that’s new! Harry thinks. “Yes,” he says aloud, again. “YeeEEeeEEssSSS. Wow. There’s so many noises. I’ve been talking in meows for the past…years. Schniiiittzzzzelllllll. Haha.”

“But you’re not a cat,” Liam repeats. “You’re a person.”

“Yes,” Harry repeats.

“I’m going to use the toilet,” says Liam. He puts his mug on the counter, not a sip drunk, and shuts the door to the loo behind him. Harry gauges the silence as best he can with this god-awful human hearing, figures he’s got nothing to lose anyway, and totters down the hall to knock politely on the door. Early predawn light warms around them and brings the day into being. Time doesn’t stop for anyone. “I’ll be out in a minute,” Liam calls, his voice strangely high-pitched.

Harry just knocks again. “You okay in there?”

“Yes!” A heavy silence. “If you’re really – if you are my cat,” Liam starts. “I’ve napped with you! I’ve kissed your little furry nose! I cleaned up your vomit and got you a healthy cat food prescription so you wouldn’t get fat!”

The warmth Harry feels at his first few sentences slowly fades. He scowls. “If I had thumbs then, I would’ve cleaned it up myself,” he says, a bit coldly. “And there’s nothing wrong with being a little cuddlier.”

More silence. Then, “You made me magic.”

“No,” says Harry. He waits. “No,” Harry repeats. “I just – helped. It was all you.”

Slowly, the bathroom door opens. “I’m just a boring bloke from a little town who fixes things,” Liam says, like Harry doesn’t know that. Like Harry doesn’t know better. “You’re…”

“Hungry,” supplies Harry quickly.

Liam hesitates, then, “I s’pose I can fix that.”

Harry beams.

It _is_ awkward at first. Liam tries to be as normal as possible, but the song he hums under his breath at the hob is tuneless, and he keeps glancing back with his mouth half-open like he’s expecting to see his dumb furry cat. Instead he’s got a dumb part-time cat familiar sat at his table, unable to stop touching his own skin. It’s insane that people actually go around feeling stuff with this all the time.

“Here,” Liam says, and gives him his best fry-up. Harry has his face halfway to the plate before he sees the fork resting on the edge, and then he pulls back, his cheeks pink, to try using it.

That’s the way it stays for days. It throws everything off. Liam will be in the middle of some repairs and Harry will wander in in a pair of borrowed track bottoms and a t-shirt and the toaster will be rewired into a blowdryer. The opposite’s been happening, too. Liam’s repaired most everything in the house over the years and sometimes, without warning, the washer will stop in the middle of a load and start spewing sopping wet clothes and bubbles all over the place. The dishwasher’s sprung a leak, the satellite’s shorted out, even Liam’s electrical toothbrush stopped working.

Finally, when the coffeepot goes, Liam makes himself sit down with Harry. “I imagine this must be weird for you, too,” he says. “I’ve told my mates that my cat familiar’s a person and they don’t know what to make of it, but,” he takes a breath, “maybe you do.” Harry nods. “We worked together good – before, right? Maybe we can again.” Harry nods again. “Do you think – maybe we could be friends?” Again, Harry nods. “Okay, so, like. What do you want to do?”

“Ride a motorcycle,” Harry says immediately. “I mean, be friends too, of course. But I’ve been thinking about things I can do now and I want to ride a motorcycle, only I don’t know how, so,” he gives Liam his best pleading eyes. He’d give a pitiful little meow if he thought he could get away with it.

“Okay,” Liam grins.

So they drive down to the local junkyard and look for the crappiest old bike Liam can find. Harry wanders around amongst the old cars and remembers watching so many of these defunct models drive by roads that’ve since been paved over again, and again. The wind caresses his bare skin and the sunlight warms him from the outside in. He’s so looking forward to the broad summer heat, but the cool of autumn is good, too. It feels almost too sweet, like a cherry cordial.

Liam has the bike up and running again in just a matter of hours. Harry drags out a couch cushion and sits on the driveway to watch him work, and lets the magic direct itself.

“If this comes apart,” Liam warns him, “there’s no reason for it to work. We’ll be road kill.”

Harry looks at the mostly magic bike. “Good deal,” he shrugs, and climbs on. Liam starts out cautious, at first, driving around the sedate and well-loved roads of his hometown not a hair over the speed limit. The more they skirt the town’s edge and into the winding foothills of the mountains, the more speed he takes on, till they’re flying down sharp corners. The bike’s back tire kicks pebbles over the side of the road and down a sheer sixty-foot embankment, and Harry laughs wildly, breathlessly.

“Have you ever seen E.T.?” Liam asks Harry over his shoulder. Harry curls his fingers in Liam’s firm stomach and shakes his head. “Trust me on this,” Liam says. When he steers off road and hits a foothill, the bike seems to hang in the air for a second longer than it ought. When he hits the natural sloped ramp of a closed bridge nobody but him knows about, the bike soars into the air. Harry lets out a scream of exhilaration, fear, and above all, supreme delight, and Liam laughs. The motorcycle slows into a gentle arc that suspends all the laws of gravity and physics. It might be a clockwork-perfect universe, but this – this is the stuff that makes it tick.

 

***

 

Liam starts talking to him again, cheerful little digressions while he cooks and makes repairs and does just about anything but sit still. Harry listens, and smiles when Liam looks over at him, and wonders if it’s enough. If he’s doing enough, if he’s being enough. Liam tugs on a lock of his hair, and Harry blinks, coming back to himself. “You okay there?” Liam asks. His hand lingers near Harry’s head, so Harry gives into the instinct and presses up into Liam’s palm. Liam laughs but scritch-scratches his blunt nails against Harry’s scalp.

“Always,” says Harry. It’s the first time Liam’s really touched him since Harry stopped being his house pet, and Harry closes his eyes, leaning into it. He missed the way Liam could be all soft touch and hard muscle, all the sweeter for how gentle he tried to be. When he blearily opens his eyes to check Liam’s expression, he’s surprised to find it hard to read.

“Sorry,” Liam says, for some reason. Frustratingly, he takes his hand away. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Harry says. He has no problem being asked anything. He can always choose not to answer. He fidgets with a fat red cherry in a bowl on the table. He forgot how much he liked fruit when he was a cat and couldn’t live a vegetarian diet.

Liam rubs his chin thoughtfully. “Just, like, not that I don’t like having you around, but I liked – but I just mean, why aren’t you my cat anymore?”

Harry looks up from the bowl of cherries. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, like. Why are you – is something changing?” He looks a bit nervous, Harry decides.

“I don’t want you to be lonely,” Harry explains.

Liam sputters. “I – why would you – I’m –”

Right over the top, Harry says, “And I didn’t like the blokes you were bringing home, so I figured I could pick them myself. I want to grow fat and old – well, not old, familiars live forever – but fat and happy on the nice canned food, and for you to grow fat and happy and old. Maybe on the good canned food. But probably not.”

Liam mouths something wordlessly for a moment, and then he closes his mouth. When he speaks again, he says, “You’re a very strange person, do you know that?”

“As a matter of fact,” Harry says, in his deepest, grandest voice, “I happen to be familiar.”

He’s still laughing when Liam tips his chair over onto the floor and lovingly whomps him with a pillow. When Harry’s finished laughing, Liam’s still waiting for him, his face thrust into dramatic effect by the simple hanging light over the table. “Want to go to the pub with the boys?” he asks.

It’ll be a great opportunity to find Liam a nice lover, Harry thinks. And he likes Liam’s boys. It’s an easy choice. He says yes, and Liam helps him up off the floor.

Being drunk is _fun._ Harry can’t really focus his eyes, or sit up without some help, and he keeps thinking that he’s going to puke if he laughs any more, but he’s pretty sure this is fun as can be. He leans into Liam’s shoulder in the booth they’re sharing with Liam’s mates – some of whom Harry’s seen before, some of whom he hasn’t – and tries to hide his cackling laughter in his sleeve.

“Another round for you lads?” asks a waiter. “The beer’s been flowing all night – practically can’t get it to stop.” And if Harry was really thinking, he might consider that dingy jukeboxes aren’t supposed to sound like the best seats in a stadium gig. But he’s not, and he’s drunk, and happy, so instead he watches Liam’s mate Louis say yes and waits eagerly for the next round.

He falls asleep before it even arrives, with his face mashed against Liam’s shoulder, the silverware rattling of its own accord on the tabletop.

Harry wakes up not on the couch, his usual spot, but on the bed next to Liam. For all that he’s getting used to being human, he was a cat for a _long_ time, so he goes with his instincts, fights against the wave of nausea that trembles against his fragile mental dam, and curls into Liam.

“Like a cat,” Liam murmurs, no doubt mostly asleep.

Harry hisses helpfully, and Liam laughs, low. He presses his soft, dry mouth against Harry’s for a second. It’s what he would have done if Harry were still his cat, but it feels different, somehow. Then his eyes are sliding shut again, all lilac-veined eyelids and creases on his cheeks from the sheets. Harry takes his first breath about a minute later, sleeps again because he just can’t not.

Liam’s sat at the kitchen table with a screwdriver and a cracked blender when Harry finally drags himself out of bed. He more or less oozes into the uncomfortable wooden chair. He wishes, momentarily, for his soft, flexible feline body. Liam pushes a plate across the table at him piled high with scrambled eggs, buttered toast, and crispy bacon.

Harry lets out a delighted little growl and digs in with relish.

“Are you humming?” Liam asks, his eyes crinkly-smiley.

Harry chews and thinks about it. “I’m purring,” he says, and goes back to eating. He tracks Liam’s hands, long-fingered, slender, beautiful hands. His left hand pretends to push a screwdriver around in the metal guts of the blender; the right fidgets with a slip of paper on the tabletop. “Whazzat?” Harry asks through a mouthful of food.

“Hm?” Liam asks. He tries to scoop the paper into his lap. “What’s what?”

Harry sticks his foot out under the table so his bare toes brush Liam’s ankle. He sends a screaming little tendril of energy into Liam’s skin and the blender between them rattles so hard it bounces off the table, takes a great, heaving breath, and the blades start spinning. Good as new.

With nothing to hide behind, Liam looks down at the slip of paper bared under the edge of his palm. “That was not fair,” he says.

“Your magic,” Harry shrugs. “What is it?”

“A number,” Liam says, biting his bottom lip. “From the club last night.”

What, like a house number? A flight number? A phone – a phone number. “Gimme,” says Harry. “Hold my hand.”

Obligingly, Liam hands the paper over, and slips his fingers tentatively into Harry’s hand waiting patiently palm up on the table. “What are we doing?”

“We’re going to read this guy’s future,” Harry says smugly.

“Harry!” Liam snatches his hand back.

“What?”

Liam, blushing furiously, won’t let Harry catch his eye. “That’s not – that’s untoward.”

Sensing an argument, Harry does his best to divert it. “If you won’t let me read his future, then let me come on the date.”

“Date!”

“Liam,” says Harry patiently. “That’s the plan, right? To get your happily ever after?”

“What about yours?” Liam asks.

Surprised, Harry’s brows go up. “Mine? Well, like I said – I don’t want to deal with someone who wears Crocs, for Pete’s sake, Liam. Now, back to you. Come on, dial him up, let’s take him out.”

It takes almost an hour of cajoling, but eventually Harry succeeds in getting Liam to call and suggest a simple lunch with his club bloke.

Liam hangs up looking stricken. “Hell,” he murmurs, looking at the phone in his hand. Harry’s waiting for it to dissemble into a watch, or a potato clock, or something. “What am I going to do now?”

He proceeds to tidy the house, trim his eyebrows with a tiny pair of scissors, take his shirt off, do a push-up, put his shirt back on, and vacuum under the couch.

The date itself operates much along those lines. Liam, bless his heart, is no good at a chat-up. Harry watches from the bar, where he’s having virgin Shirley Temples and munching his way through an order of fried pickles doused in ranch – another thing tragically ruinous to his cat’s stomach – and silently critiques Liam’s technique. The final results: very handsome, has foot-in-mouth disease, the lights make his eyes sparkle.

Liam’s date is boring as dirt, for his part. Harry’s eyes keep gravitating back to Liam’s warm-looking skin, but he has the vague impression of dark hair and a cute button nose. Liam’s already steady and practical. Harry thinks Liam could use some adventurousness. Hm. That’s a good idea. What else does Harry’s ideal candidate have?

Handsome, obviously – but not too handsome. Fashionable, since Liam wears so many jumpers and flannel. Hm…Harry watches Liam straighten the edge of his napkin on the table. Like he can feel Harry’s eyes on him, he looks up and catches his gaze. Liam smiles slowly, dazzlingly, with that face like time and space are constricting in on each other. A singularity. It lasts forever.

He should be loved, Harry decides, really, really well.

Liam lets Harry put his head on his shoulder for the drive home. It’s not quite curling up on his lap, but it’ll do. He smells like the restaurant, and the bloke he’d hugged goodbye, and like home. His lips brushing the top of Harry’s head, Liam asks, “Anywhere you want to stop?”

“Nah,” Harry says. “Just…keep driving, for a bit.”

So they do just that.

 

***

 

Harry accepts Louis’s help in preparing Liam for his next date. Well, really, Louis comes over one day and refuses to leave, so Harry caves and lets him help. He lays out his criteria for Liam’s special person, and Louis’s eyebrows go up as he looks down the list.

“What?” Harry asks.

Louis shakes his head. “Perfect team, you two are,” is all he comments, which makes Harry glow a little.

Together, they give Liam’s wardrobe a thorough going-over. The worst of his faded t-shirts go out, as well as his tattiest pairs of pants and socks.

“He’s gotta think he doesn’t need the date to go well,” Louis explains, shifting stuff around in Liam’s closet till a surprisingly nice set of collared shirts comes forward. “Like, ‘Whatever, I’m still gonna have a nice night, I’m still the fuckin’ shit.”

 Harry tries to imagine Liam saying that and simply can’t. But he gets Louis’s meaning. “How d’you do that?” he wonders aloud.

Louis shrugs, a little smile on his face. “Beats me,” he laughs, so Harry laughs too.

Still, Harry tries to tell Liam while they’re down in the local secondary school’s boiler room trying to restore heat to all the little kiddies, “You know you’re dead fit, right?”

Liam’s hand skids over the top of the wrench he’d been reaching for. “What?”

Harry nods encouragingly. “You’ve got good hair and a lovely face, great smile. No arse, but some people don’t mind.”

“Harry,” Liam says, his voice strangled.

“You make good spaghetti,” Harry goes on. “You’re a good snuggler, and you talk to me a lot, which is nice. I like how you talk to me.”

Another strangled sound tumbles past Liam’s lips.

“‘Cept when you’re dogging me,” Harry says darkly. “And interrupting my dream stories.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” Liam finally asks.

Harry shrugs. The boiler room is kind of dark and scary, and the machinery is making a weird thumping sound, but Liam’s here, looking at home amongst all the scattered bits and pieces of his particular magic, so he can’t complain. “‘Cos you’re a catch,” Harry explains. “If we’re going to catch you a good one, you should know that.”

Liam makes that unreadable face at Harry again, the one like mist pulling over a city, a feeling so deep and visible that Harry can’t figure out what it is. “Thanks for that,” he says. Then, “So, are you going to help me or what?”

He holds his hand out, and Harry takes it.

As the years roll on, nobody’ll ever quite understand how the school boiler has been working flawlessly for over fifty years, but it will. It does.

 

***

 

Liam lets Harry take his motorcycle out by himself after a thorough going-over. He goes over every inch of the bike with painstaking care, probably weaving in tendrils of protective magic. Every witch has his or her own little touches, the things they can do outside their particular brand of magic. It’s why no two witches are exactly the same. Next he goes over Harry, from the top of his helmeted head to the tips of his pigeon-toed feet.

“You should wear a coat,” Liam says, not for the first time.

“I know, but,” Harry shrugs. He likes the way the wind blows through the silky top he got from the local thrift store last Saturday after he and Liam got slushees from the corner store and fed the ducks by the lake. The wind can blow fast enough that he feels like if he spread his arms, he could take flight and soar away; if the wind blows fast enough, he could spill off the bike and slip underneath the wheel of his own making. Every once in a while, he likes the bracing rush of adrenaline. He’s not fool enough not to know that something, anything could happen in a moment, anyway, so – might as well embrace it.

Liam cups Harry’s bristly cheek – he’s got stubble now, he can hardly believe it – and strokes his thumb over the top of Harry’s cheekbone. It’s so similar to the way his hand felt on Harry’s soft, cold feline nose, his whiskers twitching at the end of his snout, but it doesn’t feel quite the same. He leans into it and gives a little purr, anyway, and Liam pulls back with a laugh. He swats at Harry’s ass, says, “Go on, have fun, call me if you’re going to be too late,” and Harry goes.

He takes the bike on a winding path through the residential streets he’s seen so much of on rides with Liam. Harry’s been prowling around at ankle-height since horses and buggies ruled the byways, so it’s not quite fair to say that everything looks familiar to him. More like he’s been existing outside of time, and now he’s a leaf being dragged down the surface of the river again. It’s all he can do to watch his life keenly as it goes by.

It’s got everything to do with Liam. The hours he spends with him hanging about the house or riding around town or battling their way through a never-ending to-do list of town-wide repairs slip by before Harry can get his claws into them, and the minutes that Liam’s not there or smiling or ruffling his hair drag interminably, like Harry’s caught in the shallows.

That’s why Harry’s stayed a cat. When you’re human, it’s too easy to get caught up in the mortal lives of the people you care about.

Harry pulls the bike up to a stop at a four-way intersection. The reflective surface of the stop sign shines dully back into his eyes, so unlike the glaring flash he’d have gotten as a cat. Harry stops, and waits, and thinks.

The bike gooses its own throttle and pushes forward a few feet like a puppy pushing at the back of Harry’s leg. He puts his palm on the soft, familiar seat, rests his heels on the footrest, and isn’t the least surprised when the bike keeps itself upright.

“Oh, alright then,” he says. “Take me home, please.”

The drive back is gentle enough that it leaves Harry plenty of time to really look at the tiny town where his witch made a home. It looks like Liam in all the best ways; in the sports field where he ran track as a little boy and the school where he learned to pick his battles and his parent’s house, where he learned to be kind. And Harry, sap that he is, loves it all over.

Liam’s waiting for him when Harry comes in through the back door with his helmet tucked under his arm and his shirt still windblown and twisted about. “There you are,” he says, looking up from the kettle and his homemade brew with a smile. “Did you have fun?”

Harry doesn’t answer. Instead he sets the helmet on the counter and sails directly into Liam’s warmth, tucking his face into his throat and snaking his arms around his waist. Liam curls his free arm around him at once, carefully sets his spoon aside, and pulls Harry into a proper hug.

“Sorry about – about the enchantments,” Liam fumbles, obviously misreading the situation. “I just didn’t want anything to happen to you.” Harry listens to him breath and feels the steady, unwinding clock of his heart against his own chest. “You’re my best friend, you know.”

“I don’t want you to be lonely,” Harry mumbles. His words are met with silence, but Liam tightens his arms around Harry and relaxes against him, or softens, or leans into him – something. Either way, he feels like the bravest person Harry’s ever known.

 

***

 

“The problem,” Harry announces to Louis over a game of pool in a pub abandoned except for them, an old one-eyed bartender cleaning glasses with a rag, and a girl at a table by herself with a thick novel, “is that nobody’s good enough for him.”

“You heard it here first, folks,” says Louis dryly. “Humanity’s best person: Liam Payne. And what were your criteria, do I dare ask?”

Harry shrugs, tucks his pool cue into the crook of his arm, and ticks off on his fingers, “Being nice, fit, good, funny – you know, all the usual things.”

“Harry, love,” says Louis, “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I think you might never get there on your own if you don’t. Have you ever considered that maybe the only person you think should be with Liam is _you_?”

“Ha,” Harry snorts dismissively. He’d flick his tail in Louis’s direction and maybe even start cleaning himself, just for the extra punch, if he could.

Peeved, Louis asks, “Well, why not?”

“Because – because,” Harry stutters. He’s never really thought about it, but the answer comes to him plainly and clearly, simple. “Because it’s Liam,” he says finally.

Something in Louis’s face softens. “Listen, there’s no hiding you’re weird as shit, alright? I see you lick stuff when you think nobody’s looking and you dance like Gumby, and half your wardrobe is from the women’s maternity section, and,” his voice gentles, “none of that makes you a bad person, okay?”

Harry looks at him. Really looks at him. “You’d make a good familiar, you know.”

“Nah,” Louis smiles. He polishes the end of his cue stick with a chalk cube and levels it out along the pool table to take his next shot. “I’ll leave licking my own ass to you.”

Harry gets them both kicked out of the pub by trying to shove his pool stick up Louis’s nose.

 

***

 

 _Why not me_? Harry wonders, looking into the mirror. The bathroom has absolutely horrid lighting and he looks like a zombie, which he knows for a fact are predominantly Central American and haven’t been round the island in ages, but still.

Liam knocks on the door. “You almost done in there?” he asks. “We’ve got a house call, a woman lost her wedding ring down the sink.”

Harry swings the door open to find Liam in his usual work attire, his head clothed by a knit cap. Terribly unfashionable. Harry’s stomach swoops. “I’m ready,” he says.

He sits on the counter in Mrs. Broadmoor’s kitchen while Liam disappears up to the waist into the cabinets under the sink. He’s not sure quite how to start, so he just jumps right in. “I’ve got another date for you,” he tells Liam.

Liam groans, just like Harry knew he would. “Not that I don’t appreciate it, mate, but we’re O for ten, and I’m just a little burnt out on the whole thing. Not to mention it is a bit costly!”

“Trust me,” Harry says, nervously drumming his fingertips on the counter. “I think I got a good one. I hope I do,” he swallows.

“Harry…” Liam whines.

Harry says, “Please, Liam,” and Liam caves instantly, just like Harry knew he would. It doesn’t make the satisfaction any less sweet.

The good thing about having put Liam through the ringer when it comes to first dates is that he spends most of the day lounging about the house in a pair of tattered track bottoms and a muscle shirt eating cereal out of the box. The downside is, Harry hasn’t had any experience in dating since witches were on trial, which isn’t exactly the sort of thing people want to hear about over white wine and salmon. Probably.

Luckily, Liam doesn’t really seem to notice Harry slowly losing his mind. He tries on everything he owns at least twice, decides it all looks like an embroidery shop exploded, and lays on the bed in frustration for a long moment. Then he tries it all on again, decides that his body is the problem, and Googles it to see if he can have Liam give him straighter hair or bonier elbows.

Then he gets sucked into a wormhole of home remedies for common ailments that occasionally result in the growth of a new head or transposition to a new dimension. Harry bookmarks the page to look at more later, then jumps into the shower, because he has fifteen minutes left before they have to leave.

“You don’t have to come with me,” Liam tells Harry when he notices him winding his scarf around his throat beside him at the door. “I can handle it.” There’s even a note of pride in his voice.

“I know,” says Harry.

He flattens his palms against the ridges of Liam’s stomach as the bike roars down the driveway and onto the empty suburban street littered with leaves in every shade of red, yellow, and brown. Because he can, and because he’s a bit of an idiot, and because Liam likes that about him, Harry worms his fingers under the hem of Liam’s leather jacket and presses the pads of his fingers against the bottom of Liam’s stomach, touching coarse hair and warm skin.

Liam sucks in a breath and the bike’s engine roars, responding to the surge of magic. A radio crackles to life inside Harry’s helmet, and he can hear Liam’s breathless laughter over the sound of the engine, clear as a bell. Harry smiles. The wind caresses the slivers of skin he’s left vulnerable to cool night air, and Harry tucks himself further against Liam’s back. He leaves his hand on Liam’s stomach.

Liam’s made reservations, because of course he has. He gives Harry the usual “go away now” nod, so Harry mills about amongst the white tableclothed tables for a moment, and then he goes to the toilet to inspect his reflection. Why anyone would want to date his big head he doesn’t know, and jeez, is that really what he’d done with his hair? Harry escapes from the toilet posthaste.

He flags down a seat at the bar so he can watch Liam from afar. Maybe he’ll just have a drink, and then he’ll go sit opposite him, slow and smooth and confident as caramel, and Liam will let him, and they can be passionately in love without ever talking about a single thing. Harry fidgets with the paper umbrella jammed into the top of his strawberry cocktail and watches Liam fold his legs, unfold his legs, check his watch, and check his reflection in the back of a spoon.

Forty-five minutes goes by, and Harry watches as Liam starts to stand from the table. He rushes to sit down in the empty seat and almost pulls the tablecloth down and sends two plates, wine glasses, and a candle clattering to the floor. He doesn’t, but just because Liam catches his elbow.

“What are you doing?” Liam asks.

“Having dinner with you,” Harry says, as confidently as he can.

Liam blinks, and then his face settles into a soft, conciliatory smile. “I got stood up. I’ve been stood up before. Let’s just go home and watch telly and eat pizza, yeah?”

Harry takes a deep, deep breath. “You’ve not been stood up,” he says, “because I’m your date.”

He watches the puzzled, friendly smile on Liam’s face click into a frozen mask while inside, his gears must be whirring.

“Please,” Harry murmurs, “sit down, Liam.”

Slowly, Liam perches on the end of his padded chair. “What do you mean?” he finally asks.

“I mean,” Harry says. His throat is too dry to continue; he has to stop and drink noisily from the water glass on the table before he can continue, “I mean, I want to be the person sat across from you. I want to make you laugh till your eyes crinkle up, and snort water out my nose, and hear all about you again, and watch your face in the candlelight and be close enough to touch.” He tries to swallow again. “I want you to want me to call you back.”

Liam slumps back into his chair and tucks his chin to his chest, his hands – beautiful, articulate, skilled hands – pooled listlessly in his lap. “No,” he says finally.

A lorry crashes directly into Harry’s chest. _No._ He’d figured Liam would let him down easy, at least. _No._

 “I’m – sorry,” Harry mumbles. “I thought – I thought it was the same for you.” He fights to keep the tears out of his voice as much for Liam’s sake as his own.

“Stop,” Liam says, surprisingly harshly. “You know it’s not that.”

Harry leans back in his seat and looks across the table at this person he thought he knew better than anyone. “It’s not?”

“I think we should talk about this at home,” Liam says, still in that same angry tone of voice. So Harry follows him to coat check and climbs onto the bike behind him, careful not to touch his skin this time.

The moment Liam steps into the house, everything mechanical starts rattling and shaking. The AC unit in the window, the ceiling fan hanging overhead, the light fixtures in the ceiling, the toaster and coffee pot sat on the kitchen counter, the TV. Harry catches his breath.

Brilliantly, Liam doesn’t stop in the living room or the kitchen or his bedroom. He grabs a bottle of beer from the fridge and stomps right on to the back garden, where he comes to a sudden stop. Harry follows him out and watches from the doorway as Liam twists the cap off his beer, takes a drink, grimaces, and paces back and forth in the overgrown grass beyond the low edge of the porch.

Harry slowly moves up till he’s sat on the edge of the porch with his feet and ankles in the grass, and his bum on the cold, hard wood. For the first time, he wishes he were a cat and could just perch on the spot, his tail coiled smartly around himself.

“Don’t do that,” Liam says, his voice ragged. Harry snaps his eyes to Liam, who’s stood amongst a bunch of weeds in their tiny back garden, a hectic flush climbing his cheeks and his eyes hard and bright. “Don’t look a thousand years away when I’m still right here.”

Harry folds his hands together, his fingers neatly woven together. “I’m not,” he clears his throat, “I’m not doing that.”

“Yes, you are,” Liam argues softly. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, and then sometimes, when I look at you, I know I’m just the latest…whatever. Witch. Friend.”

Harry sucks in a hurt breath. “I don’t think of you that way,” he says as levelly as he can. He’s trying not to be angry. He’d already have sprouted claws if he was a cat.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Liam says, his voice caught high up and pained in his throat. “You don’t see yourself – _really_ see yourself at all. Hell. People would’ve paid to paint your picture a thousand years ago, I know they would, and not just ‘cos you’re handsome. You’re just…special,” he says, sounding frustrated. “And I’m not.”

Yeah, Harry’s claws would definitely be out. “Shut up,” he says, and then, “Shut up, Liam,” because it feels stronger.

Liam lifts his chin up and says, “I won’t.”

And maybe that’s why they make sense. Because Liam doesn’t think he deserves the best of everything, and Harry knows his best isn’t good enough, but they can try. Like fitting puzzle pieces together, one person’s hollowness carved out just to make room for the other. Harry wants to share this with Liam as fast as he has the thoughts, but he can’t get his mouth to work fast enough, and anyway, Liam’s already talking again.

“And if you really do love me that much, you’ll leave off. Familiars live forever, but I’ll die, and that’s too sad.” He hesitates, then, “I don’t want that for you.”

Harry could cry, he really could. How can someone know so much about you that you’ve never even said? “I spent a long time being a cat,” Harry acknowledges. A long, long time. So long he might’ve forgotten himself, and why all this is so much fun. “Trust me when I tell you that loving you is the least sad thing in the whole world.”

Liam’s handsome, intricate face winds to a stuttering halt. “Really?” he finally asks, so Harry has to kiss him. Liam’s mouth is damp and his lips are warm and raw from him biting them and he tastes like beer, and he doesn’t push Harry away. Harry keeps kissing him till the flavor of beer washes away and all that’s left is Liam, sleep-warm and soft and muscled and frustrating layered under Harry’s hands.

Liam breaks away with a, “We should probably take this inside,” that Harry heartily agrees with yes. Yes, very good idea. He can’t stop looking at the light splash of freckles on the tops of Liam’s cheeks and the bridge of his nose and he can’t stop pressing his mouth against any bit of Liam’s skin within reach. So Liam breaks away and pulls him back through the sliding glass door and into the dark house, where the machinery lies surprisingly quiescent, by the hand.

Harry says, “Liam,” and reaches for him again. “Liam,” he repeats, and his cold fingertips find Liam’s warm cheek, and everything in the house comes alive at once. The overhead lights spring on, the dishwasher starts _swish-swishing,_ and the stereo system picks back up with the Usher song Liam left it on.

“Was thinking,” Liam says, “you should know – that’s how I feel when you touch me,” and has the grace to look a little abashed.

“Oh, you are going to hurt,” Harry admits, his chest already aching to be nearer to him.

This time, Liam cups the back of Harry’s head, his thumb on the hinge of Harry’s jaw, and Harry thinks, _oh._ He tries to hook his claws in the fabric of Liam’s coat, but he doesn’t have claws anymore, so he curls his fingers and holds him close, instead. They stumble, off-kilter, till Harry’s lower back is pressed against the cold, hard edge of the counter. He can hardly feel it.

“This isn’t, like, weird, is it?” Liam laughs breathlessly. He smooths his thumbs over Harry’s cheeks in and leans in again. It’s even better than Liam scratching his little furry ears or tucking him inside his jacket to get him to the vet in the rain. It has Harry’s human heart skipping through its paces, hungry and nervous and thrilled about what might come next.

“I don’t want you to be lonely,” Harry murmurs, and licks down Liam’s neck, over his Adam’s apple, to the birthmark at the hollow of his throat. Liam groans. He wants a lot more for Liam than that, but he figures it’s a good start for his favorite witch.

“How could I be?” Liam asks, so Harry looks at his face, his crinkly-eyed smile and his red lips and the bristle of stubble on his jaw, and closes his eyes, and kisses him.

**Author's Note:**

> the fic post on tumblr is [here](https://niallspringsteen.tumblr.com/post/151734864047/you-made-me-magic-on-ao3-9k-liamharry-liam/). kudos/comments V MUCH appreciated, and thank you so much for reading.


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